Getting Started with OpenGL - Mac

I've been looking around the internet for quite some time. OpenGL.org has great tutorials and whatnot on how to get started... learning to code in OpenGL... but the Apple website (IMO) is crap when it comes to explaining how/where to get/download GLUT and OpenGL for OSX.

Would someone be kind enough to point a total newbie in the right direction?

if you're not interested in glut, and are looking for a more non-portable option, I'd suggest looking into working with OpenGL in Cocoa. If you have any questions about Cocoa and OpenGL I'll be happy to answer.

Was not there a bunch of stuff on the OpenGL list lately about GLUT being incomplete in the distribution and you had to compile it yourself to get it to work correctly? I know the framework that is installed is functional...

ThrottleMonkey, don't forget to tell us what OS version you are using and what developer tools you have chosen. In any case you have to link to the correct libraries/frameworks, and how you do that depends on the IDE. But I'll ditto OSC that you don't have to download or install anything. Also, if you have the Apple developer tools installed on OS X, there are a pile of AGL, NSGL and GLUT sample applications.

I recommend OS X, and either Project Builder (free) or CodeWarrior ($$) to develop with. You will probably get more help from those of us around here who like Apple's tools because they are free and work pretty darn well. If you are using GLUT, you also need to link to the Cocoa frameworks on OS X because they are used to implement GLUT. From there, either NeHe examples or, do yourself a favour, read the OpenGL Programming Guide. It's for sale in stores at v1.2, and free online for v1.1.

I have added some of this to the FAQ. If this is somehow redundant... then the FAQ needs reorganization.

I really want to begin programming, but... well... I kinda need a mentor.

Preferably someone that is patient with someone (me) who asks lots of questions.

NEHE looks great, only the Tutorial on OpenGL is very vague as with which program you're supposed to be putting all that code in... is it CodeWarrior, GLUT? what?

I thank you all for your input. I'm just getting very frustrated at running around in circles in the past, trying to find good help, examples, tolerant people (who are tolerant of coders just starting out... total newbies like me).

Oh, and what's the Project Builder download link? I keep going to apples' dev site and only get the "run around" links... not some place i can actually download it.

Quote:Originally posted by ThrottleMonkey NEHE looks great, only the Tutorial on OpenGL is very vague as with which program you're supposed to be putting all that code in... is it CodeWarrior, GLUT? what?

The NeHe Tutorials were originally written to work with Windows -- you'll see "#include <windows.h>" at the beginning of the example files. However, there are GLUT versions available for download. Also, note there are almost forty tutorials, from the absolute simplest all the way to quite complicated games.

Question: Are you already familiar with the C programming language? (Note to self: finish "ChooseYourEnvironment" in FAQ.)

Instead of dealing with AGL for creating OpenGL contexts in windows or fullscreen, you may want to check out SDL (http://www.libsdl.org), a very nice little library which can create a context for you very easily (the way to do it is written in the documentation, it only takes a few function calls instead of the two pages of code Apple provides as a sample) and works pretty well from what I've seen.